Regionalism needed to bridge north-south divide | Letters

Gordon Brown calls for a people’s convention to brainstorm ways of reducing the growing economic gap between the south-east and the rest of Britain (Any Brexit deal must seek to mend the north-south divide, 9 November). As he notes, recent governments – Labour and Tory – have exacerbated the problem by reducing regional aid and skewing both transport and R&D investment toward the south. However well northern schools and universities perform, the productivity and skills gap